News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security

August 23, 2006

A Northwest Airlines flight from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam to Mumbai returned to Schiphol shortly after takeoff today, as the result of suspicious behavior by twelve people on the flight, who were using cell phones onboard, passing them among themselves, and disobey flight attendants during an early stage of the flight. The flight returned with F-16 escort and the 12 individuals are currently detained in accordance with Dutch law. No word yet on the identities of the 12 individuals and whether this is connected at all to terrorism (I’ve checked Dutch language sources in addition to English ones), and this could be nothing, but given the circumstances, it sounds like the authorities in the Netherlands acted appropriately.